431. Her tears sang, I had to break myself for something not mine, but I don’t know the tune.

432. My tears were like a war ravaged country.

433. My tears, too, dreamed of elsewhere, to live in a place where things that happened, mattered.

434. My tears were ignorant, they lived what mattered.

435. My tears said to the world, Great loss creates wholeness.

436. My tears said, If I speak, you will see my coruscating soul.

437. My tears said, I loved you, but our time has passed.

438. His tears said, Let’s go to the drive-in and make out.

439. My tears said, Our window is closed.

440. His tears said, Let’s go to the beach and make out.

441. My tears said, You never touched me, or looked into my eyes, so now we can never be.

442. My tears said, Oh how I would have, but you did not.

443. Your tears said, I received a message from God on Facebook,

444. then he posted on Instagram.445. My tears said, When I in Awesome Wonder,

446. then sings my soul.

447. Her tears said, I needed you to stop, but you did not.

448. My tears are at a loss…

449. now.

450. They’re hemmed in, my tears, between numbers, words and the blank sides of a page.

451. How can my tears escape? With jungle vines and furtive lines-with back alley bombast and sarcastic, silly, sneering tones from my sinister sister Sally, who wouldn’t know a ________if it hit her or smacked her in the head, till she dead? My tears have somewhere else to be, don’t know where they are now, but they gonna get out, they gotta get out.

452. My tears need a escape route, some kinda protection, we ain’t that, we ain’t bein’ that. That not we. How dare you say it be we.

453. My tears search for the peaceful stream of me.

454. His tears said, to her, I want someone to share in the misery and the glory.

455. My tears said, you taught me to accept that which I now reject.

456. My tears say, Can I be you instead of me, just for the day?

457. My tears said, I was not afraid of violence ‘til violence came to me.

458. My tears said, You know what I am? I’m a sucker for color.

459. My tears said, my dad was happy, surrounded by broken machines,

460. Their tears needed his love, his tender loving love and care, and they responded.

464. Her tears, in tears, a stranger turned to me, crumpled hands covered her face,

465. my arms wrapped her petite frame, they longed to be longer.

466. Her tears, her words leaked through her hands, wet my chest,

467. Her tears raised a plea to the pastor, a daughter, possibly dying,

468. Our pastor inquired about the next fundraiser.

469. My tears witnessed, and they judged.

470. My tears said, I want to reach our heartbreak, to be together in the depths of that which we dare not name, nor dare to feel, and to sit there, as we hold each other in the dark, as we sit there holding, we’re holding, and God flows in.

471. My tears said, we are quivering masses of, endless masses of feeling and flesh and, that’s all my tears have to give, not my flesh, only to a few in this world will my tears give my flesh, our flesh, but my feelings, our feelings, those of my tears and I, we only have our feelings to give, at the end of the day, when the flesh quivers no more, all I had, all we had, were our feelings, to give.

472. My tears were just a baby, Lord, you know that. You were there, with my tears not even on their knees, they couldn’t get on their knees, yet. My baby tears could lay and stay on their back, that was it, kicking legs, closed eyes, sleeping, spasmodic arm movements, curl, uncurl, toes, fingers grasp at nothing, you were there, Lord.

473. My tears ask, they ask you, does my dark show? Do you see it around my edges, leaking, pooling around me? Will you love me,

474. My tears, if you know, if you see my struggle to stay off my knees?

475. My tears grasp for the hand of God as they feel me sink lower, all our hands grasp for those of God, our tears hit the paper. Our tears pool, on the paper, like the dark around me.

476. Do you feel our tears spread out around you? Are your shoes wet, do you feel our tears seeping into the hem, the hem of your garment, the hem of His?

477. I say, to my tears, this cost me, this cost me to write this, to tell my tales to you, to look inside and expose the ugly. This cost me to be cloistered, alone, my eyes wet with tears, tears that I am not always sure are my own and others I am certain are not mine, they are not mine and I did not earn them, do you hear me say that? I did not earn them, they were foisted on me, or given to me with a smile and a laugh, with no sense of survival skills, no teaching of how to protect, no teaching from anyone, large, small, or old. Foisted tears and no survival skills and I must say, I must write, I must have eyes wet, in aloneness, cloistered in solitude, cloaked, holding the darkness within, as I let it seep out, in doses and ways the earth and those around me can tolerate, a slight singe, with no igniting the torch.

478. I say, to my tears, it’s the endless battle of a lifetime, one which I cannot win.

479. It’s a battle of tears I wage, I’m fighting a battle I cannot win, it’s me against you, tears.